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The B.C. government says it is seizing “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to become a world leader in clean energy by making it quicker and easier for renewable energy projects and major power lines to get shovels in the ground.
“Renewable energy projects are urgently needed to provide affordable clean power, create jobs and strengthen and diversify our economy, especially during this period of global market uncertainty,” Energy Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday as he introduced Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act, in the legislature.
If passed, the legislation would put the BC Energy Regulator, a Crown corporation that oversees oil and gas operations, in charge of renewable energy projects as well, including wind, solar and geothermal. The regulator would also oversee major new transmission lines, including the North Coast transmission line, a 450-kilometre high-voltage line that would run from Prince George to Terrace, B.C., to power liquefied natural gas (LNG), mining and other projects.
Bill 14 would also exempt the North Coast transmission line and nine wind projects from the environmental assessment process. Instead, Dix said the BC Energy Regulator will develop a new regulatory process for assessing renewable energy projects.
“We’re going to have a rigorous process,” Dix said. “It’s a one-window process, but it’s going to be dramatically more efficient. These are environmental projects that are, in the case of the renewable energy projects … majority First Nations-owned.”
The Narwhal previously reported that BC Hydro quietly asked the B.C. government to exempt the North Coast transmission line from an environmental assessment, a public process that would detail the line’s impacts and propose mitigations where possible. According to BC Hydro, the transmission line will affect as many as 101 private properties, including agricultural land. It will also cut through traplines and woodlots, fall within 200 metres of archeological sites, overlap with designated winter habitat for moose and cross waterways that include habitat for at-risk white sturgeon.
The non-profit group Wilderness Committee Conservation groups and the BC Greens expressed concern that exempting energy projects from assessments and streamlining permitting could erode environmental standards.
Isabel Siu-Zmuidzinas, climate campaigner for the non-profit group Wilderness Committee, said the B.C. government needs to make it clear that it’s not fast-tracking projects like the North Coast transmission line to electrify LNG projects.
“Expanding a sunsetting industry like LNG and cutting corners is exactly what [U.S. President Donald] Trump is doing right now and a shortsighted move,” Siu-Zmuidzinas said in a statement.
“How we build out clean energy matters and it cannot come at the expense of environmental protection or be used as precedent to fast-track other fossil fuel development.”
Jeremy Valeriote, interim BC Green Party leader, said he’s concerned that changing the way energy projects are regulated and permitted could potentially weaken standards “we rely on to make sure these projects don’t do damage.”
“We are all in favor of efficiency and streamlining permitting and regulations but it has to uphold the standards that we expect.”
He said the BC Energy Regulator — largely funded by fees and levies on the oil and gas industry — has “at best a mixed track record of approving projects.”
“And the fact that they’re funded through industry leaves some concern for potential conflict of interest,” Valeriote told The Narwhal. “We need to look at [the legislation] carefully and what kind of guardrails are going to be around the BC Energy Regulator and how they do their work.”
A recent investigation conducted by The Narwhal and Investigative Journalism Foundation found the regulator has a track record of documenting apparent infractions at active oil and gas wells, pipelines, processing plants and other fossil fuel infrastructure, but fails to issue sanctions to correct them. Internal documents from the regulator show fewer than two dozen BC Energy Regulator inspectors are responsible for monitoring nearly 200 fossil fuel companies operating 6,594 facilities.
In a press release, the B.C. government said the regulator will be hiring more staff and “subject-matter experts” to support its additional responsibilities under the new law.
In a scrum with reporters, Dix repeated that he is confident the BC Energy Regulator is well-equipped to oversee the renewable energy sector and the North Coast transmission line. He cited the regulator’s experience in monitoring infrastructure related to the oil and gas sector and said this expertise means B.C. can “maintain high standards and build projects sooner.”
The BC Energy Regulator’s new powers will also give it access to new revenue sources, Dix confirmed. To fund its operations, the regulator collects fees and levies from the industries it oversees — which include hydrogen, ammonia and methanol in addition to oil and gas.
“They have the ability to get the resources they need to regulate these new services,” Dix said in response to a question from The Narwhal. His answer implied that the renewable energy sector will soon be subject to fees and levies similar to those currently imposed on B.C.’s oil and gas sector.
Renewable energy sources, according to the bill’s definitions, are “biomass, biogas, geothermal heat, hydro, solar, ocean, wind or a prescribed resource” — meaning the provincial cabinet will have the power to define other energy sources as renewable.
“This is critical to our economic growth agenda, to the climate change agenda, to growing industry in our province,” Dix told reporters. “I’m very proud of the legislation and am looking forward to receiving the strong endorsement of the legislature for it.”
The B.C. government is betting heavy on that endorsement. When Dix introduced the bill in the legislature, he announced the government considers it a confidence vote — meaning that if the bill fails to pass, the NDP government would fall and a provincial election would be called less than a year after voters last went to the polls.
“It’s central to what the government’s message is: that we have to diversify our economy,” Dix said when asked why the bill was designated a critical vote. “This is central to economic growth and it’s central to climate change.”
The government’s press release says the North Coast transmission line will help meet anticipated energy demand “from critical mineral and metal mining, port electrification, hydrogen, fuel processing and shipping projects” under consideration in northwest B.C.
But during debate on the Energy Ministry’s estimates on Tuesday, Dix told Valeriote the primary customers for the new power line will be the people who live in that part of the province.
“Well, first and foremost, the residents of the northwest,” Dix said in response to Valeriote’s question about who the government expects will use most of the North Coast transmission line’s power. According to Dix, “residential service is sometimes not always what it should be” in northern B.C.
Internal Energy Ministry documents obtained by The Narwhal via freedom of information legislation indicate the 2,200 megawatts of electricity the North Coast transmission line is expected to deliver to the northwest would barely meet anticipated demand from mining and LNG projects planned for the region.
“It makes no sense to bring on a lot of clean energy that you then use to power fossil fuels, especially when it’s used to greenwash those fossil fuels,” Valeriote said. “There’s no point in putting up wind turbines to liquefy gas to send across the Pacific.”
Dix maintained B.C. “can’t displace fossil fuels in the economy” without boosting clean energy production.
“There’s always a reason to be opposed to clean energy or any other project, but these projects are good for our economy and are good for our environment,” he insisted. “They’re fundamental to the government’s approach and we have got to build them.”
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